It’s official, I have the old man’s disease, better known as Gout!
After a few weeks of bad joint pain alternating between my right and left foot, I finally took Cindy’s nagging advice and went to an urgent care center this morning.
The doctor (she had an awesome British accent) listened to my symptoms, examined my swollen, discolored big toe joint on my left foot and diagnosed exactly what Cindy had suggested a couple of weeks ago; I have the old man’s disease known as gout!
I have been prescribed a steroid (which will raise my blood sugar levels, but it can’t be helped), a strong pain reliever, and told to stay off my feet as much as possible. I’d already been doing that for a few days as much as I could and it helped reduce the swelling/pain, but not much. Anyway, now Cindy gets to wait on me hand and FOOT (pun intended) a little longer.
I’m trying to figure out exactly what caused mine. I don’t drink much beer (hell, if I have two a year that’s a lot), our red meat intake is not excessive and neither of us eat shellfish. These are three of the top causes of a rise in uric acid which is what results in gout. However, diabetics and those with kidney issues can be predisposed to getting gout, and I fit into both those categories. But, as the doctor told us, it can also be just a little of one of those foods or some other food that I may be sensitive to. Or it could be genetics though I don’t recall either of my parents (men get it more than women, but post-menopausal women can develop it also) ever having said they had gout.
So, I will probably have to get my PCP to prescribe a preventative medication in order to stop having these painful attacks. But I have to wait until a couple of weeks after this bout has subsided because the doctor said they don’t work while the flare-up is happening.
When I was a kid and head of someone with gout, I imagined some decrepit old person with barely any time left on this earth. But I don’t feel old and decrepit and I hope I have more than a little time left in this old world.
It just goes to show what time and perspective can do to change your view.
And now I totally understand what Charles Dickens meant when he wrote, “Gout introduces you to a variety of new sensations which otherwise would be closed to you.”
For my part, I would have rather skipped the introduction to gout.
Reading comic books for half my life and watching superhero movies the other half made me a Galactus-level winner of the SFX Magazine Fantastic Four quiz!
We watched “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” the other night and his guest was Ian McKellen. That in and of itself made the show more wonderful than usual. But, what was even more startling was to find out that McKellen had, earlier in his career, performed a part of a play where Shakespeare addresses immigration some 400 years ago. In fact, he performed it from memory right there on the stage of The Ed Sullivan Theater.
Here’s a video of Sir Ian McKellen performing that part of the play. It’s stirring and touching and amazing all at the same time.
As I was eating breakfast this morning, Cindy, sitting across from me at the dinette said, “Oh, the guy who sang ‘Joy To The World’ passed away.” That “guy” was Chuck Negron, member of one of the greatest rock groups of all time, Three Dog Night. He passed away yesterday at the age of 83 due to “complications from heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease…”
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In my mid-to-late teens, Three Dog Night was one of the most prolific rock, soft rock, and pop rock bands of the day as well as one of my favorites. From the time I was 14 until I was 20 (1969-1975), the band had 21 Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 hits, with 3 of those hitting the number 1 spot.
I remember in 1970, when I was 14 going on 15, sitting on the bus going to high school with my earphones in and my transistor radio on (so I didn’t have to interact with the other students) listening to “Mama Told Me Not To Come” and “Out In The Country”, both hits that year, on station WQAM (560 AM). Today that station is a sports format broadcaster, but back then it was Miami’s premiere Top 40 radio station.
I also remember reading back then that the origin of the band’s name was based on the fact that Aboriginal Australians would, on cold nights, sleep with one Dingo (a native species of wild dog) to keep warm. If the night was really cold they would sleep with two and if the night was freezing cold then it was a “three dog night” for them. My weird teen brain thought that was a cool thing to base your band name on, but today I STILL think that so maybe I haven’t grown much beyond my 15-year old self.
In addition to the two listed above, Three Dog Night had SO many great songs; “Joy to the World”, “One”, “Never Been To Spain”, “An Old Fashioned Love Song”, “Black and White”, “Eli’s Coming”, “Easy To Be Hard”, “Pieces of April”, “Celebrate”, “The Family Of Man”, “Liar” and others.
But I think MY favorite of ALL their songs is “Shambala” as it captured, to me at least, the feeling of the time which was that we were striving for a better world for all mankind. Plus I just liked the melody.
However, you also just can’t help but smile when you hear Chuck Negron belt out “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” at the beginning of “Joy To The World” and so with his passing he will be greatly missed.
Rest In Peace, Chuck Negron. Hope you found your Shambala.
Today, January 31st, is observed as National Hot Chocolate Day and I’m all in for it. Especially in the cold weather we’re experiencing.
I’m not a huge fan of hot drinks (with the exception of a hot toddy, lol). In fact, the only other two kinds I drink are hot Hibiscus Tea because Cindy says it helps lower my blood pressure, and hot chocolate. Not hot cocoa, hot chocolate. I prefer the fuller body and flavor of hot chocolate over hot cocoa.
And no marshmallows (yuck!), mini or regular size. I will occasionally enjoy some whipped cream on top.
This drawing of Superman enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate in his Fortress of Solitude with his boots and cape off? Well, that’s how I feel when Cindy whips me up a nice hot chocolate and serves it to me in my Superman mug.
Today, January 29th, is a day made for yours truly and all my other ill-tempered friends; it’s Curmudgeons Day!
You can read all about how the history of the day at this link.
Several years ago, when I was deployed to New Jersey for disaster response to Superstorm Sandy, one of my staff members awarded me (as a joke, of course) an official certificate declaring that I was a member in good standing of the International Society of Curmudgeons.
I saw this on Mark Evanier’s blog a couple of weeks ago and thought I’d take my shot at rating the places I’ve eaten at on the list.
So, rather than just a straightforward yes or no as to which places I’ve eaten at like the graphic asks, I’m going to follow Evanier’s lead and use colored checkmarks as the following indicators:
No checkmark – I’ve never eaten at that place.
Green checkmark – I’ve eaten there and would go back without hesitation.
Yellow checkmark – I’ve eaten there and would go back IF there was no better place nearby to eat at.
Red checkmark – I’ve eaten there and would go hungry before I’d go back there.
And yes, Baskin-Robbins is spelled wrong and Domino’s, Denny’s and Applebee’s are all missing their apostrophes. It grates my grammar sensibilities, but it’s a graphic image; you take what you can get.
Cindy asked me what I wanted for Christmas this past year and I told her I wanted a dashboard/windshield phone holder for my cellphone.
When we are pulling our travel trailer Nomad as The Wandering Wetheringtons, we have an RV GPS navigation unit attached to our windshield that directs us on routes that are safe for our travel trailer. We’ve entered the length, width, and height of Nomad (as well as our tow vehicle truck, Voyager) and the maximum speed we want to travel at and it makes sure to guide us to and over roads that can handle our equipment with no low bridges, narrow roads, dirt roads, etc. Being on the windshield at eye level makes it easy to look at it without really taking my eyes off the road.
But, when we’re NOT pulling our travel trailer we don’t use the RV GPS because it would take us on potentially longer, less direct routes that are safe for Nomad, and we don’t need that when it’s just the truck. For those kinds of trips we use Google or Apple Map apps on my cell phone with a Bluetooth connection to the truck’s sound system. Since we started traveling 4 1/2 years ago, we’ve used a WeatherTech phone holder that sits in our middle console cup holder to hold my cellphone. That works fine if you’re just listening to turn-by-turn directions, but I’m the kind of driver who likes to look at the map on the screen as well. To do that, I’ve got to look down at the phone in the cup holder, which means my eyes leave the road.
Shot of our RV GPS in the top photo and windshield cellphone holder in bottom photo
So, when Cindy asked me what I wanted for Christmas, the first thing I thought of was a cellphone holder I could attach to the dashboard or windshield. I looked at ratings and reviews for several different models and picked one I thought would work best for me and sent her the link.
Imagine my surprise Christmas morning when I opened one of my gifts and it was the cellphone holder I could attach to the dashboard or windshield, lol!
Now, I actually knew it would HAVE to attach to the windshield because our dashboard is textured and nothing really sticks to it for very long. And I knew I wanted to have it on the lower left side of the steering wheel so it would not interfere with my wider field of view through the windshield.
It’s been up now for about three weeks and has worked great for when we’re driving without the trailer behind us. It’s easy to see the screen (most of the time-a couple of times the sun has hit it just right and caused a glare) and I just feel a lot safer not having to look down to see the map.
Thanks to my wonderful wife for this great gift of a windshield phone holder.
It was 60 years ago today, Wednesday January 12, 1966 when I was 10 1/2 years old, that the new Batman TV series premiered that night at 7:30 pm. Today, we celebrate the Batman TV series 60th anniversary!
Batman TV Series and Batman: The Movie
The Batman television series premiered on January 12, 1966, and ran until March 14, 1968. It starred Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin during the first two seasons, then added Yvonne Craig as Batgirl in the third and final season. Over its three-year run the TV show aired 120 episodes.
For the first two seasons, the show aired twice a week on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The Wednesday show always ended with a cliffhanger that found The Dynamic Duo in danger of dying with the announcer ominously urging viewers to tune in the following night “Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel” to see if Batman and The Boy Wonder could escape certain doom.
The third season reduced their show to once a week, but added the extremely attractive Batgirl to the mix in an effort to retain or draw in the young males in my age group who might have been moving into puberty or growing tired of the TV series. Or both.
In July of 1966, after the first season had ended, a Batman feature film was released in movie theaters across the country. Batman: The Movie saw our heroes facing four of their major villains, The Joker, The Riddler, The Penguin, and Catwoman, all at the same time. The film also introduced the Batcopter, Batcycle (with sidecar for Robin), and the Batboat as new vehicles for transporting The Caped Crusaders in their crime-fighting efforts.
Oh, and it famously debuted the renowned Bat-Shark Repellent Spray which Batman always kept in his utility belt.
The first TV season and the summer movie were such popular hits that huge (at the time) Hollywood luminaries such as Victor Buono, Liberace, Otto Preminger, Anne Baxter, and Carolyn Jones, among many others, were banging on the door trying to get parts in the second and third seasons. Some were cast as villains, some were content with a simple cameo of them opening a skyscraper window to peer out and engage the heroes in a short conversation as Batman and Robin “climbed” up or down the side of the building. It was actually a set building exterior turned on its side so that West and Ward could easily walk while pretending to pull themselves up on their Batropes, with their capes held out streaming behind them with a string to make it appear the capes were being pulled downward by gravity.
Batman And Me
Along with Superman, Justice League and Flash, from DC Comics, I had been reading Batman and Detective comics for about 4 years at that point. I’d already watched the live-action Superman show starring George Reeves from the late 1950’s every time an episode aired, so I was very excited to see The Caped Crusader make his live-action debut.
And I had seen ads, of course, for the upcoming TV series of the new Batman show, in comic books and TV Guide, so I was more than ready to see another one of my comic books heroes come to life on the small screen.
Naturally, as a 10-year old superhero fan, I ate up the TV series each week and yes, if you had peeked inside our TV room you would have seen young Jeff punching the air, leaping over the chairs, tumbling across the room, and pretending his 4-year old brother was Robin.
As I wrote in this blog post, that first Halloween after the premiere of the TV show my costume was, of course, Batman.
I even had a Batman lunch box the next year that I proudly took to school each day.
So while Batman was never my number one (or even numbers two three or four) superhero, I still enjoyed the TV series and movie, like most 10 year olds did.
Batman Cultural Impact
The Batman TV show was quite different than the older Superman show. Superman had some humor in it, of course, but Batman was played as “campy” which Webster defines as “absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected in a usually humorous way.” If you’ve ever seen the show, you know what I mean. Batman, as portrayed by Adam West, was SO serious and staid while surrounded by craziness as to be laughable. Yet he always got the job done and good triumphed over evil.
The show was meant to appeal to kids who read the comic books, of course, but also to their parents who could laugh, out loud or quietly, at the inside jokes and humor that was presented to them. Not that I EVER recall my parents watching the show.
But that campy style made it a hit! Batman on TV entered the cultural zeitgeist in a way that Batman in the comics never did up to that point. In fact, the comic books were in danger of being cancelled for low readership when the TV series premiered and breathed new life back into that medium.
Suddenly the “Pow” and “Bang” and “Zwonk” that flashed on the screen during the obligatory fights between our heroes and the villains found Batman on the cover of obvious publications like TV Guide and Photoplay, but also famously on the cover of mainstream Life Magazine.
And Robin’s catchphrase of “Holy (whatever they were dealing with at the moment), Batman!” became the catchphrase of every kid who wanted to BE Robin.
Thus, Batmania spread across the country in a manner similar to K-pop the past couple of years.
Batman has undergone many different changes since his TV debut 60 years ago today, as any longtime fan can tell you. The character has been in serious movies, comedy movies, Lego stop-action movies, animated movies, animated TV series, and appeared in multitudes of comic books, both his own and as a guest star in others.
He has been known as Batman, THE Batman, The Dark Knight, The Caped Crusader, The World’s Greatest Detective, The Goddamn Batman (his own reference to himself), The Gotham Guardian, Bats, and The Bat. But no matter what Bruce Wayne calls himself (or others call him) he will always be the little boy who witnessed the murder of his parents and dedicated himself to becoming a force for good and justice in the world.
So today, on the Batman TV Series 60th Anniversary, we celebrate what Adam West, Burt Ward, and Yvonne Craig brought to us those many years ago in all its forms.
Or, as Robin would say, “Holy 60th Anniversary, Batman!”
It’s true, there seems to be a day for EVERYONE and today, January 2nd, is the annual observance of World Introvert Day. A day set aside for those of us who are introverts.
I’ve had some fun with posts about introverts before like here.
Introverts, as a rule, are not shy, afraid, or arrogant. They are just people who need their own space and time to recharge to function at their best. Small talk is not their forte; but have a discussion about ideas, philosophies, or deeper subjects they know or want to know more about and they are there for it.
If you just want to debate or argue, well maybe not so much.
My mom was an introvert, my father an extrovert. Being an introvert myself I was always amazed at how my dad could walk into a room full of strangers and in a short time know something about almost all of them by interacting with them. He was not adverse to just walking up to strangers and start talking to them.
For me, that is not usually going to happen.
But, later in life, I often thought I may have inherited some of that ability, even though it was not my default behavior.
Introverts Are Not Anti-Social
I have held public speaking jobs, jobs where I had to go out and meet people and engage with them. My last job of 14 years involved walking into the offices of elected officials or their staffers (who were complete strangers to me) and engaging with them and explaining complex federal government programs, policies and procedures to them. Going to their town halls and speaking to their constituents. Being available all hours of the day (and sometimes night) to answer their questions. These are not the career choices for someone who is shy, afraid or arrogant. When needed, I can be the most friendly, outgoing and solicitous person that most people would ever meet.
When there is a reason to be so.
But, when the day is over or the job is over or the need is over, introverts welcome (and require) the time and space to be alone and recharge their “social batteries” so to speak. We may not always want to engage in drinks after work or the company picnic or mindless chit chat. I well remember walking into my hotel room at the end of the day or the end of the week, closing the door and not emerging until the next morning or when the weekend was over. I relished that time alone, not because I had no where else to go or be, but because I needed that solitude for the night or the weekend.
We’re not anti-social, just deliberate about our socializing.
In fact, if I count you among my closest of family or friends, I will heartily enjoy socializing with you. Make no mistake, I will still need some time to myself, but I will also very much enjoy spending time with you.
So if you know an introvert, wish them well today if you see them, lol!
And, if you’re an introvert yourself, celebrate your time and have a Happy World Introvert Day.
